"Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it."
Edmund Burke. What happened on this Day in History?

Monday, February 3, 2014

This Day in WWII History: Feb 3, 1944: U.S. troops capture the Marshall Islands

On this day, American forces invade and take control
of the Marshall Islands, long occupied by the Japanese and used by them
as a base for military operations.

The Marshalls, east of the Caroline Islands in the western Pacific Ocean, had been in Japanese hands since World War I.
Occupied by the Japanese in 1914, they were made part of the "Japanese
Mandated Islands" as determined by the League of Nations. The Treaty of
Versailles, which concluded the First World War, stipulated certain
islands formerly controlled by Germany--including the Marshalls, the
Carolines, and the Marianas (except Guam)--had to be ceded to the
Japanese, though "overseen" by the League. But the Japanese withdrew
from the League in 1933 and began transforming the Mandated Islands into
military bases. Non-Japanese, including Christian missionaries, were
kept from the islands as naval and air bases--meant to threaten shipping
lanes between Australia and Hawaii--were constructed.

During
the Second World War, these islands, as well as others in the vicinity,
became targets of Allied attacks. The U.S. Central Pacific Campaign
began with the Gilbert Islands, south of the Mandated Islands; U.S.
forces conquered the Gilberts in November 1943. Next on the agenda was
Operation Flintlock, a plan to capture the Marshall Islands.

Adm. Raymond Spruance led the 5th Fleet from Pearl Harbor
on January 22, 1944, to the Marshalls, with the goal of getting 53,000
assault troops ashore two islets: Roi and Namur. Meanwhile, using the
Gilberts as an air base, American planes bombed the Japanese
administrative and communications center for the Marshalls, which was
located on Kwajalein, an atoll that was part of the Marshall cluster of
atolls, islets, and reefs.

By January 31, Kwajalein was
devastated. Repeated carrier- and land-based air raids destroyed every
Japanese airplane on the Marshalls. By February 3, U.S. infantry overran
Roi and Namur atolls. The Marshalls were then effectively in American
hands--with the loss of only 400 American lives.